My thanks to the talented and generous Joe Cipriano for posting this clip from what might have been the late 70’s early 80’s LA show “2 on the Town” featuring some of that era’s best voice over talent, including the man who’s voice lured me into this business, Ernie Anderson.
I hope you enjoy this as much as I did.
A nice surprise today in the mail when I got my invitation to Buffalo Broadcasters Association’s 13th Annual Hall of Fame Awards Celebration on September 22nd.
A long time Western New York voice talent and former KB Radio jock and production director Pat Feldballe is one of this year’s inductees. I can’t say for sure but I think this is the hall’s first inductee whose primary career has been as a voice talent.
Pat’s always been a very nice fellow and if you’ve every seen a Time-Life Commercial, you’ve probably heard Pat’s voice. Lord knows he does almost every non-radio produced spot in the Buffalo market.
Congrats Pat, a well deserved honor.
While the voice over trip to New York City was a bust a few weeks ago because of weather (what are ya gonna do?) the non-voice over trip to Miami had some wonderful voice over highlights.
I had brief hopes Sunday of connecting with voice talent Mike Elmore (winner of the Unofficial Jimmy Fallon Announcer Faux-ditions) while in Miami. Mike caught my arrival update in Miami off of Facebook. Alas he had familial commitments that precluded that connection and I fully understand; hopefully next time.
Caryn Clark and Kara Edwards were also going to try and come over from the Tampa side of the state but that didn’t work out either and would have been a crazy drive just to see me.
Male Voice Talent Doug Turkel - Unnouncer
Monday night I was able to grab dinner with the Unnouncer, Doug Turkel. I really feel sorry for waiters who wait on the two of us when we’re at dinner cause it’s hard for them to take our order. We’ve got so much to talk about between voice over, social media, new equipment, family and other stuff, the wait staff can’t get a word in edge wise. Doug is such a great friend and peer, I always feel fortunate to spend time learning from him.
And, he said making his segue, one of the things I learned from Doug at our dinner was that he had done as he said he was going to last time we visited. He started up a Voice Over Master Mind Group in Miami.
What’s that you ask?
Well, a brief and incomplete answer is it’s a concentrated networking, education and quasi-support group for voice talent. The idea came to Doug from his brother (the same brother who helped Doug coin the Unnouncer moniker) who formed a very successful Master Mind Group for his connections (though his group his less industry based and more C-Level in its focus.
The monthly Voice Over Master Mind Group that Doug formed allows participating voice talents to talk about all aspects of their business. For example, each person starts out by talking about a recent success and a recent challenge or miss they experienced in their business – this offers a great way to share in the wins and help give ideas and insights into how misses might be avoided next time….all in a totally professionally supportive way.
The group then focuses on a topic they had agreed upon at the last meeting; this way they can look up some helpful information on the voice over related topic to share at the meeting to keep the discussion moving and credible. Tuesday’s topic was the always, thrilling, exciting and dicey topic of voice talent rates. It was truly insightful to have an honest roundtable about rates, how to deal with clients on rates, how to have some spine when dealing with them on rates and how people make use (or don’t make use) of pay-to-play sites.
The other great thing about this meeting is that each person speaks about something they want to accomplish in their careers by the next meeting and the group holds them accountable…that is huge! When we are accountable, we execute and the members of the Miami Voice Over Master Mind Group each gets’er done!
The icing on this already delicious cake (oh, and yes there actually WAS cake at the meeting, as if you thought it couldn’t get any better) was that I got to meet some talented and truly nice people – peers in the voice over profession.
Female Voice Talent Mindy Baer
In addition to the aforementioned Unnouncer, also in attendance was Miami morning radio legend and now full time voice over talent Mindy Baer
Female Voice Talents and On-Camera Talents Mary Chamberlain and Jackie Bales
Jackie Bales a former news anchor and now a lovely on-camera spokesperson and voice talent; the equally beautiful on-camera talent and voice actor Mary Chamberlain
Male Voice Talent Doug Turkel and Female Voice Talent Lisa Lupari
The Voice Babe – Lisa Lupari-what a terrific branding moniker that is! That brand name says it all!
Male Voice Talent Zurek
The fast rising voice star Zurek – he of Voiceover Universe, new SBV client, video seminar pal of Joe Cipriano, promo voice for BET and the voice of a new national spot for Sports Illustrated.
It was a real treat to be invited in on this group’s very special meeting and I think it’s a terrific idea for other voice talents in other markets to create something similar to build their network, their educational resources and possibly save their sanity by getting out of the sound booth once and a while.
Jack Mahl on WGR-TV, Buffalo, NY
My hometown of Buffalo, NY gets picked on for many things (most of them deservedly so- except the weather, it’s not nearly has bad as people think) but one proud fact that this city doesn’t get credit for is its broadcasting and announcing talent. It is historically outstanding!
Before you go blathering about how this post will be self-serving (no, this has nothing to do with my voiceover business) or how every city has great announcers (yes many do), I just want to share with you here one example of a great, not properly recognized voice talent that I briefly worked near (not with, I wasn’t that lucky).
When I was a high school intern (yes, high school, not college) at WFXZ-FM (originally WBUF-FM), I worked with legendary Buffalo broadcaster Jack Mahl. I understood then that he was talented, but I didn’t understand how much he had accomplished.
Have you ever been in the presence of greatness but not understood at the time how lucky you were? That was me in 1981 with Jack Mahl (pronounced “mall”). At the time I was working as a news intern in the morning with Susan Hunt and in the afternoons with PD/MD Jeff Appleton. The afternoon news man was Jack Mahl who worked with the afternoon DJ’s Steve Mitchell and Chuck Stevens (who is now over at WJYE-FM).
Great googly-moogly what a powerful, resonate yet calming voice Jack Mahl had. To me, he could read the phone book and it would sound interesting. I knew he had worked for many years in local radio and television but it felt very much for the teen-aged me when I worked with him like Jack was in the Fall of his career.
That was likely a misguided teenager’s opinion based only on what I saw. You see Jack was an extremely tall man who I think had leg problems exacerbated by the fact that the on-air studio was on the first floor and his office was on the second floor; the stairs he had to ascend after each newscast made his pain obvious. I never actually asked about his condition for fear of prying into something that really wasn’t my business, and likely his issue could just as easily have been temporary and fixed medically. The point here was he seemed old to me at ae time when I didn’t understand what old was.
Nevertheless, I loved to listen to his newscasts.
At some point during my internship, Jack was replaced as afternoon news anchor by Dwayne Walker with whom I did a bit of interning work. I remember being surprised by this change (my first experience into what is an everyday occurrence in radio). I don’t recall whether this was Jack’s choice or the station’s choice and ultimately that’s not my business either. Jack worked on-air up until December 29, 2000, his last job at all-news WNED-AM. But having come across Steve Cichon’s terrific staffannouncer.com site and seeing Jack Mahl on it, I felt like I wanted to share my small story about Jack Mahl.
In many ways, I wish I was smart enough with Jack to pry just a little but I was too young, too shy and too stupid. I could have heard stories about his career, a summary of which was taken from his 2000 induction in to the Buffalo Broadcasters Hall of Fame.
JACK MAHL’s booming voice, warm smile, friendly manner and snappy salute became the stuff of legend during more than a decade as “Your Atlantic Weatherman” each weeknight on WGR-TV (Channel 2) starting in the mid-1950s. But his career goes far deeper than that indelible impression. A prime member of the original Channel 2 air staff, Mahl earlier had gained the attention of listeners with his radio newscasting and DJ stints at WKBW, WGR and WHLD, becoming a late-night favorite of GIs stationed in Greenland during his KB tenure as host of “Spotlight Serenade.” Not long after Atlantic stopped sponsoring TV weathercasts, Mahl returned to radio and helped pioneer the introduction of all-news radio to Buffalo at WEBR. After serving a 10-year stint as news director at WBUF-FM, he returned to WEBR (which later became WNED-AM). For 13 years Mahl also was the live announcer for the Mark Russell comedy specials on PBS. He was often asked by longtime fans to deliver his signature TV sign-off phrase: “That’s all for Mahl, good night!”
Jack Mahl died in 2002. He certainly wouldn’t have remembered me but I remember him. That man had a wonderful voice. Here’s a sample (about :21 seconds in) from a Mark Russell comedy special for which Jack served as announcer for 13 years.
Television has changed a lot since the day Ed McMahon first teamed up with Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show. Maybe they don’t make performers like Ed because no one makes as much room for them now.
That was one of the thoughts I had upon hearing that Ed McMahon had died overnight. I was sad for the loss of him, for the loss of his talents (as an announcer and performer) and for the loss of what he represented to broadcasting. Everything evolves so maybe we can’t have our Ed McMahons anymore. We’ll get someone new who puts their spin on the job.
But he sure was a talented guy who was too often underestimated by many….except for a guy named Johnny.
Monday Conan O’Brien began the new Tonight Show and it was a great show.
Even more important was Andy Richter’s start as the show’s new announcer and he was absolutely spot on. When he introduces the title to the show it conveys his excitement and lets the viewer know something special is about to start.
You can check out the entire broadcast here including Andy’s great opening announce.
I noted here previously how happy I was to hear that Conan was bringing Andy back into the fold. At present, Andy is just at the announcer’s position but they really should bring Andy in as sidekick because they work really well together on camera.
At any rate I’m really happy for both of them and for the team working on the show. It was a great first effort and a beautiful production.
